Since childhood I've always been pretty competitive. I'd always put it down to being short and therefore suffering from short man syndrome and constantly having to prove myself. Despite thinking that I'd mellowed a bit with age, new research suggests that our competitive urges continue to grow until they plateau at around 50.
Thankfully I've got a few years of red blooded'ness left, but interesting research nonetheless. Apparently testosterone reduces with age, whilst we become more social as we age. We also tend to prefer mastery of skills as we age, so compare our performance against ourselves rather than against others.
The research team set up a stall in a shopping centre. They invited participants to solve some simple mental arithmetic problems as quickly as possible. In return for this they were awarded points for success that they could cash in for cash prizes.
The participants completed one 30 second round of questions in which they earned more points the more questions they successfully answered. The next round was then competitive, whereby they earned points only if they beat a randomly chosen rival. The final round gave participants the choice over whether to compete against themselves or a foe. At the end they were asked to rate their performance.
The results
As other such studies have shown in the past, the results provided some clear gender splits, with men twice as likely to go for the competitive final round than women. Women also performed worse when under competitive circumstances than when competing purely against themselves. They were also less confident in their performance than men were, with this level of confidence influential in their choice to compete (for women they only competed when there were good odds of winning. Men by contrast wanted to compete regardless!).
What's interesting though is that the taste for competition increased with age, before levelling off at the age of 50. For instance, around 70% of men aged 45-54 chose to compete, whereas only 50% of 25-34 year olds did.
There were no real performance differences between age groups to help explain this difference. Nor were changes in confidence sufficient to explain the competitive urges of older men. Another study might shed some light on things though. It found that social dominance increases with age until people get to 50.
The research team supported this theory.
"Successfully engaging in competitions is critical for establishing social dominance and therefore it is plausible to assume that with such an increased interest in social dominance comes an increased 'taste for competition."
So it would appear that our competitive urges continue to thrive until we mellow in our 50's. That should keep me thrashing away on the bike for a few more years yet.
What are your thoughts on this research? How has your own competitive spirit changed with age?
Looking good there Adi, like your gloves 🙂
I always thought competitiveness was all about sex though, and that once we had a 'mate' our need to show off dropped a whole lot?
I try hard for my look Nick 🙂 Before this I thought the same. Pretty interesting findings though.
I've seen lots of cyclists and runners that are over 50 so their must be a bit of competitive spark left in them. Maybe they just display it a bit more smartly than most.
The research is interesting but is based on the average person. At 53 and a bit I'm still very competative and so are most of the 50 & 60 somethings I know. If we are living longer and healthier is that competitive urge not going to keep on going. Nick maybe I'm just a show off. He he.
Thanks for the comment Thomas, and welcome to the blog 🙂 Do you find you're more or less competitive than you were?